I'm a big fan of stats, facts, records & such so I was curious when looking at Philip Rivers 2008 stats, during which he led the NFL with a 105.5 passer rating.
It seemed like an awfully high rating for a guy who got snubbed for the Pro Bowl and ended up with an 8-8 record, division title non-withstanding. So instead of being a total troll and asking you to do it (like you don't have better things to do) ...
(Newsflash, Jim: we don't.)
... I did a little research on my own. I have a pretty nice NFL library in my bookcase as well as trusty NFL.com.
Here are some Cold, Hard Football facts regarding Rivers 2008 Season, which was nearly as rare in itself as the Chargers winning the division at 8-8.
Since the NFL went to it's current rating system in 1973 ...
Rivers is just the third QB to lead the NFL in passer rating but not lead his team to a wining record. The others are:
- Steve Bartkowski, 97.6, with the 7-9 Falcons in 1983
- and Ken Anderson, 95.7, with the 7-7 Bengals in 1974
To stay in the Super Bowl Era we also can include Sonny Jurgensen with the 1967 Redskins. He was the top rated QB (according to the 2008 NFL Record & Fact Book) in whatever system they used and with his numbers converted to the current rating system (87.3) the Redskins were 5-6-3.
Greg Cook with the 1969 Bengals led the AFL in passer rating when adjusted to the current rating system (88.3), despite Cincinnati's 4-9-1 record. The NFL system at the time (Record & Fact Book) gave the title to Jurgensen (Redskins 7-5-2) but he was 4th in the current system with an 85.4 rating.
By the current method, Fran Tarkenton led the NFL in passer rating that year (87.2) while leading the Giants to a 6-8 record.
So, in the Super Bowl Era, that's five NFL quarterbacks and one AFL quarterback who led their league in passer rating but failed to have a winning record: Rivers, Bartkowski, Anderson, Jurgensen, Tarkenton and Cook.
(CHFF interruption: Hey Jim, the guys at profootballreference.com have "leaderboards" in which they list annual leaders in countless different categories, including passer rating leaders. It uses the current methodology of calculating passer rating, and confirms Cook and Jurgensen as leaders. I don't know why the NFL Record & Fact Book insists on making apples to oranges comparisons when they could just easily recalculate passer rating for everybody. They do the same thing with other records and, well, it's stupid.)
Like Rivers, neither Bartkowski or Anderson were named to the Pro Bowl team despite being the top rated passers in the league in their respective years.
Neither the Bartkowski's 1983 Falcons or Andersons's 1974 Bengals made the playoffs. One other teams had an NFL passing leader but failed to make the playoffs: the 1986 Vikings went 9-7 with Tommy Kramer (92.6).
Rivers is only the second QB to have a 100-plus rating when his team did not have a winning record. The other was Daunte Culpepper for the Vikings in 2004 (8-8, 110.9 Rating).
The 2004 Vikings, unlike the 2008 Chargers, failed to make the playoffs at 8-8, but Culpepper did made the Pro Bowl roster that season. He finished second on the passer rating leaderboard that year to Peyton Manning's record 121.1.
Rivers won the passing title by a robust 8.1 points over runner-up Chad Pennington (97.4). That is the 10th highest margin between winner and runner-up for this stat since 1966 (1966-1972 converted by the geniuses at NFL.com). The largest Margin was Steve Young's incredible 22.1 difference over Brett Favre in 1994 (112.8 to 90.7)
I hope you found these little tidbits surrounding the statistical oddity that was Philip Rivers 2008 season interesting.
Regards,
Jim K. Georges
Atlanta, GA
